I’ve still to work out the MPG etc on the new diesel car, but I’ll post on that later.

I’ll need diesel tomorrow – probably around £55!

My next payday is 20 March but I don’t envisage any major expenses before then. Our seven-year-old is talking more and more about going to Disneyland Paris at some stage this year, so the sooner I can clear my credit card debt and start some sensible saving, the better!

My wife was paid today and apart from paying a percentage of the lunch expense, she repaid me £80 of what she owes me – balance £70.10, excluding a £347 car repair bill that she has indicated she won’t be able to pay me

Cannily buying cheaper cuts of meat, and other products, is easily defeated by tasty temptations such as spending £2.06 on Tesco Creamy White Stilton With Apricots! But I persevered and did my best.

The shopping came to £115.30 which after multi-buy savings and staff discount at 10% came to £99.82. Despite this, I was reminded of all the things I didn’t buy as soon as my wife started putting the shopping away. Oh Happy Day!

Total = £7.41

There may be an opportunity for some paid overtime coming up in the next few weeks. This is a fairly rare event in my line of work as a manager so I’ll be grabbing the opportunity with both hands, needless to say!

I got paid, and when checking my payslip, I had forgotten that apart from the £1995.11 pay hitting my bank account, I also pay £150 a month into my employer’s Save As You Earn scheme. The balance on this account is just over £5K. The other “good” aspect is that I also forgot that my 21 year old son contributes £80 a month to the household coffers. While this doesn’t pay for all of the cost of keeping him here, it does help offset it.

Bad news? A medical emergency resulted in an expenditure of £10.13 at McDonalds as my wife was too unwell to make dinner this evening. While waiting for my son tonight I also blew £4 in Starbucks, although I had no lunch costs today which helps.

Total outgoings = £14.13

Meanwhile, I’ve been watching my fuel gauge with interest. Following my change from a 2.4L petrol engine to a 1.9L diesel engine I’ve noticed that I have travelled 415 miles so far on a full tank of diesel which is 1/3 full still. The most I ever managed on a full tank of petrol (same size of tank – 61 litres) was 328 – result! I may well hit 550 or 600 before having to refuel which despite the higher cost per litre, should still result in a substantial saving.

BBC Your Money Link

So, how can I clear my debt quicker, without just relying on my salary? I’m looking around the house for items that I can dispose of, reasonably quickly and at a reasonable price.

What have I got? Firstly, there is a practically unused treadmill being used as a clothes dryer in the family room. This is too heavy to post so will be sold via our local paper rather than Ebay and should fetch £70-£90. My second object for consideration is a camera I treated myself to, only four or five weeks ago before I realised the damage I was doing with my credit cards. I still have the receipt. I’m returning it for the full £97 it cost me.

I plan to bring 650 copies of old sheet music (that Ebay charged to much to sell!) to a local vintage fair. These colourful items can be framed and make great pictures as well as their inherent collectability. These should fetch £3-£5 each.

Other items such as DVDs and CDs can be loaded onto Ebay in minutes. The costs here can be a little steep but if you need cash, it’s the best opportunity around. Books and other smaller, easy to post items, can sell well. Review what’s in your wardrobe. Vintage or designer label items, even a few years old can command decent prices.

Attics are another source of bric-a-brac that can be sold off. Old stuff that has been sitting up there for some years will find a buyer at a car boot sale – you’d be surprised just what folk will pay you for! What’s in your garden shed? Anything worth money to someone? It’s worth something, or you wouldn’t store it away! Old toys are always a winner at car boot sales too…

This course of action can be taken to extremes, so consider wisely what you sell. You may not want to sell your lawnmower in the winter to have to buy another one when the grass starts to grow again, for example.

Lunch cost £3.05 when it should have cost £1.99 – not the end of the world

A drink of water and a packet of peanuts at a Mac User Group meeting was £0.78

Some groceries on the way home added a further £7.35, totalling £11.18.

I’ve had worse days! I’ll post tomorrow on some income streams I’m hoping to realise.

So, £14.24 + £3.90 = £18.14.That’s the most I’ve spent in incidentals since I started this on Monday.

I’m back to work tomorrow so a week’s diesel and five lunches to consider. I already have breakfast in work every day as I keep a box of cereal for that purpose. It may need replaced during the week, but I reckon if I have breakfast and a cheapish snack for lunch, I can survive until dinner when I get home in the evenings.

I’m planning to do a post on raising additional cash or adding income over the next few days and a page discussing exchange rates so that readers outside the UK can have a clear picture of the cost of living in comparison to their countries.